We
met in Jomtien 10 years ago with high hopes for our common goal.
Set against the highly practical aims agreed in 1990, the last
ten years have been a mixture of achievements and disappointments.
There has been excellent progress particularly in terms of reducing
the rate of illiteracy in the world. But in some countries,
the progress made in the 1960s has been limited and in progress
in the 1970s has stopped or gone into reverse. Between 1990
and 1995, for example, the gender gap in adult literacy actually
widened

There
are many plausible reasons for this relative failure. One was
simply that the school-age population in the 1990s was the largest
in the history of the world and was growing faster than ever
before. Countries with the fastest population growth also had
the least capacity to find additional resources for education.
In many of these countries the burden of debt and structural
adjustment has forced education and other social sector expenditures
to take a lower place in the national agenda.

It
is time now to remind ourselves of the priorities. All countries'
experience of development shows the economic value to education.
Together with primary health care, education is the foundation
of development.

Experience
also shows the importance of concentrating efforts on education
for girls. As we have heard, girls are two-thirds of young people
not in school, and two-thirds of the world's illiterates are
women. There are many obstacles to closing the continuing gender
gap in education, but none of them are insurmountable. Many
of these obstacles are solely in the mind: somehow policy makers,
political leaders and even parents, still do not see the overriding
need of educating girls.

In
many societies, all the benefits for girls and women from education,
such as knowing their rights to protect themselves against violence,
protect themselves against diseases and unwanted pregnancy,
economic empowerment are precisely the reason why these societies/countries
consciously or subconsciously have denied girls of educational
opportunities. In several countries, the content of girls' education
is selective and inclusive only of how to be a dutiful wife
or mother.

Education
for girls and young women is still treated often as an optional
extra - an aim to be pursued when other more urgent needs are
satisfied. But there is no more urgent needs than to liberate
the human potential and the economic contribution of the half
of our young people who happen to be female.

These
are of course the reasons why political commitment and leadership
will be so important to realizing the goals of education for
all, especially of girls.

This
also implies the need to build broad-based partnerships that
involve non-government organizations, the private sector, the
international community and most importantly, governments. There
must be on-going consultations with all these sectors in developing,
implementing and monitoring EFA plans. This was also the message
of the President of Senegal at his opening statement when he
said that the way to move EFA forward is to engage every one
concerned and to use national assessments as a basis for taking
concrete actions at country level.

We
must look at education in its totality, linking it with efforts
to improve content, quality and life skills. For example, through
the education activities it supports, UNFPA aims to contribute
to improvements in the quality of basic education through the
introduction of new curricula that includes life skills, HIV/AIDS,
gender issues, population, reproductive health, family life,
and sexuality education. We have also supported training programmes
for teachers that help ensure gender sensitivity in the classroom,
and programmes to enable them opportunities to acquire skills
to positively influence student attitudes and behaviours.

Marriage
before the age of 18 is another powerful distinctive to education.
It is also a threat to reproductive health. Early marriage often
means early pregnancy, which is highly risky for both mother
and child; adolescent girls are physically, mentally and emotionally
unprepared for childbirth. The risks are well known, yet the
practice continues. One of our common aims should be to make
early marriage unacceptable, in a social as well as a legal
sense; and to promote instead the advantages of girls' education.
We must broaden the, minds of parents as well children.

Poverty
is frequently offered as a reason for marrying off young girls;
but I think a far more powerful motive is the cultural conservatism
that assigns no value to girls except as future wives and mothers.
A girl's future is often predetermined and her choices and options
pr-empted b cultural norms and practices. Culture that deny
choices to women and girls must be changed.

Together
with positive action to promote gender equality, education and
health care empower women to take control of their own destiny.
Raising the status and recognizing the diverse roles of women
strengthens the family and society, as a whole Education, health
and equality are every woman's right.

Over
the last 30 years, countries, which have invested in education
for girls as part of its education priorities, and as part of
an integrated approach to social development, have seen excellent
results. As a group, they have slower population growth, faster
economic growth and a higher level of social cohesion. It is
time for all countries to put aside their doubts and fears about
educating women, and give it the highest priority.

None
of this is new. Practical experience shows the need and the
benefit of education for all. There is and has been for a long
time a global consensus on it. The UN conferences of the 1990s,
starting with Jomtien, all emphasized education, and all stressed
the need to close the gender gap.

UNFPA
is committed to the global initiative on girls' education launched
by the UN Secretary-General yesterday. This programme will go
a long way towards eliminating gender discrimination and gender
disparity from educating systems. UNFPA is committed to working
with partners in promoting integration of education with development
strategies, in partnership with governments, with donors, other
members of the UN system, non-government organizations, the
private sector, the media and civil society.

This
morning's panel discussion is of particular relevance to many
developing countries as it addresses the question of resources.
This can be addressed from two aspects: through more efficient
and effective utilization of existing resources for education,
and through mobilization of additional resources.

In
terms of the better utilization of resources, first of all schools
must be fully utilized and properly equipped, teachers must
be held accountable, students provided with the means to attend,
and special attention given to gender inequalities and girls;
needs. Second, we must encourage creativity and innovation to
try new ways of doing things. This could include more and better
partnerships with the community in managing its educational
programmes and systems, and greater accountability given to
the local level. Third, it means that countries must prioritize
allocations within the education sector, such as ensuring a
proper balance between university education and basic education.
In some countries, the greatest share of government budgets
is for higher education and basic education is very poorly addressed.

In
terms of mobilizing resources, countries must mobilize domestic
resources from all sources - - from the government, from the
private sector, from NGOs, from the household and from the community.
Mobilizing of resources will be easier if parents and communities
recognize the importance of education for all their children,
both boys and girls.

It
is important to assess how resources are shared within the country,
as there is a tendency to concentrate resources at the central
level, when the need is most critical in rural areas. Relatively,
the same amount of resources can go a long way in meeting basic
education needs of those in margininalized communities, some
of which require only basic teaching and learning aids.

The
20.20 initiative needs t be pursued actively to ensure that
the necessary national and international resources are given
to critical areas of social development of which education is
undoubtedly, the top priority.

We
must also encourage greater south-south cooperation and the
exchange of wonderful experiences and lessons learned in educational
policies and programmes in many developing countries.

We
all can benefit a great deal from harnessing the private sector,
which is already active in many countries and reaping the profits
from, investing in education because people believe that private
schools are better managed and ran. WE can definitely learn
from the private sector about management principles and how
to improve the efficiency of the public sector.

The
international community must pledge to help countries that have
the right policies and concrete programmes to help achieve the
goals of Education for All.

In
conclusion, I would like to note that many countries are reaping
the benefits of slower populating growth and smaller groups
of school-age children, combined with a large group of young
people entering the work force. This combination offers countries
an opportunity to increase both the quantity and quality of
investment in education without sacrificing other priorities.

Global
investment in education is as much a necessity for donors as
it is for developing countries. There is no way of calculating
all the benefits education will bring - but it is clear that
failure to invest will cripple human lives and the countries
they live in.

There
are many problems in achieving education for all and many technical
issues to be resolved. But the first necessity for finding solutions
is the determination to find them. Education does not offer
quick returns on the large investment it demands. Both the return
over time is larger than any other, especially when it is combined
with other investments, notably in health, in women and in gender
equality, and especially in reproductive health. Universal quality
education is not only a perfectly practical aim for all countries,
it is also a most essential goal for our common future.